Bob Becker, 80, has a simple philosophy about his age. “I don’t think of myself in terms of age, really,” Becker said. “I just figure if somebody else can do a particular thing, there’s probably not a whole lot of reason why I can’t do it myself.”
Which is why, on July 7, Becker found himself 282 feet below sea level in Badwater Basin, California, in 118-degree Fahrenheit heat, staring down the near-impossible once more: In his ninth decade of life, Becker wanted to become the oldest official finisher in the history of the Badwater 135 Mile ultramarathon, the punishing 135-mile race through the state’s searing Death Valley.
Almost exactly 45 hours later, he did.
Bob Becker proudly displays his 2025 Badwater 135 Mile finisher t-shirt, alongside coach and friend Lisa Smith-Batchen (to his right.) Photo courtesy of Lisa Smith-Batchen.
“Kind of everybody in the race knew I was shooting for this oldest runner finisher mark,” Becker said in a recent phone interview. “So there were a lot of people up there cheering me on.” “It was just a great adventure,” he added.
Becker — a race director in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, who now has four official finishes at Badwater — had already once attempted to become the oldest finisher. Three years ago, when he was a spry 77, Becker finished 17 minutes — “17 minutes and 27 seconds,” he’ll point out — over the race’s 48-hour cutoff time. His back had gone out at mile 100 and he could barely move. Videos of him crawling to the finish line went viral. An “unofficial finish” he called it. He wanted to make it official.
“I had unfinished business,” Becker said. So, he came back. He ran the Route 66 Ultrarun, a 140 miler on the historic road in Arizona, in November and “felt really good about it … And I thought, You know what? I think I’m going to throw my hat in the ring and see if I can qualify and be selected to try one more time,” he said. “And fortunately, it all came together.”
Training and Preparation
First, though, he had to train. Becker has been running ultras for 20 years, but Badwater, which calls itself “the world’s toughest footrace,” represents a particular challenge. In true race director fashion, Becker had a list of the “four primary difficulty components” of the notorious race: It’s long, it’s hot, it has a lot of elevation gain, and unless you’re an elite runner at the front of the field, it requires you to run through two nights. Becker credits his coach of 20 years, Lisa Smith-Batchen, for helping him prepare for his record-breaking attempt. “She’s always had me ready on race day,” he said.
Florida, famously, is flat — a mostly paved swampland with very few natural opportunities for elevation training and a less than ideal place to train for a race that starts at the lowest point in North America and ends at the trailhead for the highest point in the contiguous United States. But Becker found a way, and perhaps there’s a lesson in that.
“The highest point, basically, in Fort Lauderdale is 75 feet above sea level at the top of a bridge that’s a half a mile all the way across,” he said. “So, you do 20 or 25 miles on that bridge and you’re getting a little hill work in. Try to find an office building or a condo building where you can do stairs and go to a gym and do a StairMaster.”
Or sometimes Smith-Batchen would prescribe something more unorthodox: pulling a giant tire. “It creates drag and really works those calves and the muscles in the back of your legs,” Becker said. “And it really does simulate uphill movement.”
Running 20 miles on a half-mile-long bridge, running up stairs in random office buildings, pulling SUV tires — this is the work ingrained in Becker’s legs and mind at the starting line of Badwater. He did not break the record by accident.
Bob Becker on the climb up to Towne Pass during the 2025 Badwater 135 Mile. Photo: Arnold Begay
Executing the Plan
But first he had to run, of course, and a calf issue just three miles into the race was his first surprise. “And that actually stayed with me the whole time,” Becker said. “So that was something that caused a little bit of concern, but, you know, I worked through it, shook it out, and was able to sustain my race plan.”
His race plan was to walk the steep uphills, run the downhills, and do a run-walk sequence on the flat sections. “That’s what I do. That’s how I train. Because I figure in a race like this, I’m not going to run any more than half the race,” he said. “And I’d rather start at the beginning to mix it up rather than doing a death march at the end.”
More than once, Becker credited his crew — Smith-Batchen, Marshall Ulrich, Heather Ulrich, and Will Litwin — for helping him through the race and showering him with tough love when he needed it. “They got me to the finish line,” he said.
By the time he got to Lone Pine, the penultimate checkpoint about 123 miles in, he knew he would do it. “All I had to do,” he said, “was get up that hill.” Becker got up the hill — his unassuming name for the 13-mile climb up to the Mount Whitney trailhead with more than 4,500 feet of elevation gain — and made history. At 80 years young, he had done it.
Bob Becker near Stovepipe Wells on the 2025 Badwater 135 Mile. Photo: Arnold Begay
Reflections
A week later, he reflected on what it meant. “The fact is, I am older, so I’m not as fast as I used to be. I can’t bomb a downhill trail race anymore. I just don’t have that confidence,” Becker said. “And so I have to pick my races carefully. I have to be sure that I’m being realistic about the cutoffs and the conditions of the race. But otherwise, the fact that I’m the oldest guy is almost secondary.”
Badwater, he said, was the only race where his primary aim was breaking the oldest finisher record. “And I had my eye on it for a long time,” Becker said. “And so, it was very satisfying to finally be able to do that.”
Call for Comments
Have you heard of Bob Becker? How inspired are you by his story?
